I got a call from the obstetrician who we were seeing today. There were no abnormalities with my d&c and the chromosomal analysis was normal. Just like all the others. Although this time the doctor did say that this didn’t mean there was a genetic abnormality, but that it wasn’t a a gross chromosomal level. So short of highly intensive genetic analysis (which may not be an available thing) we will continue to have no idea.

I don’t know where to go from here. We have seen the fertility specialist and we do have an IVF plan, for when we want. We could go down the path of sperm donor as well. We could stick with our own stuff but do emetic analysis. We could do nothing.

I don’t know.

I don’t know if I can say I am depressed, but I am not functioning at a normal level either.

after that election, I am somewhat grateful I don’t have a child. I am genuinely scared that we are headed for a global conflict, or at the very least problems that are going to get worse…

Share this:

Like this:

Some thoughts. In 2010 I worked as an election official in a federal election in Australia, where we narrowly re-elected our first female prime minister. It Some thoughts. In 2010 I worked as an election official in a federal election in Australia, where we narrowly re-elected our first female prime minister. It was so narrow that the result in the end was decided by the few independent MPs. What I noticed that day was that at the end of the day, when we counted the ballots by hand, was that the conservative parties had election observers present but the left did not. At least one of the observers was the adult son of another observer. The conservative party was better at indoctrinating their message. Lefty, social justice parties are not so good.

In part this is for very good reasons- we believe that everybody has the right to an opinion and a voice, and we tolerate others’, even as we disagree (or at least this is my view on this element). Conservative parties are much less tolerant of others opinions, they are like the bossy person in a meeting who will not let others disagree. They win because they are so focused on making sure that their opinion dominates. In order to preserve liberal democracy, this tendency has to be overcome.

Progressive politics racked up an amazing number of wins in the USA (and worldwide) in the early 20th century . These were achieved largely by women, despite the fact that they often did not have the vote (that was one of the wins). How can we do that again?

Those of us who live comfortable lives often forget how hard won those are, and how fragile they are for others. If you are upset with this election, don’t bunker down in your safe suburb, or in your group of like minded friends. Go out and be the action you want. Make noise. so narrow that the result in the end was decided by the few independent MPs. What I noticed that day was that at the end of the day, when we counted the ballots by hand, was that the conservative parties had election observers present but the left did not. At least one of the observers was the adult son of another observer. The conservative party was better at indoctrinating their message. Lefty, social justice parties are not so good.

In part this is for very good reasons- we believe that everybody has the right to an opinion and a voice, and we tolerate others’, even as we disagree (or at least this is my view on this element). Conservative parties are much less tolerant of others opinions, they are like the bossy person in a meeting who will not let others disagree. They win because they are so focused on making sure that their opinion dominates. In order to preserve liberal democracy, this tendency has to be overcome.

Progressive politics racked up an amazing number of wins in the USA (and worldwide) in the early 20th century . These were achieved largely by women, despite the fact that they often did not have the vote (that was one of the wins). How can we do that again?

Those of us who live comfortable lives often forget how hard won those are, and how fragile they are for others. If you are upset with this election, don’t bunker down in your safe suburb, or in your group of like minded friends. Go out and be the action you want. Make noise.

Share this:

Like this:

This US election cycle has been depressing. One of the more depressing things is the constant refrain from one side that they are sick of “political correctness”. That’s some upset privelge talking. Political correctness needs to be rephrased as what it is- modern good manners.

Oh, member of a group (an identifiable group) you would prefer we don’t use a pejorative name for that group! That’s reasonable and good manners.

Oh, we would like active consent before engaging in sex and sex related activities! That is simply good manners.

Both genders should receive equal opportunities and there shouldn’t be any bias. I don’t what to call it but good manners.

So now when I hear people say that they don’t believe in political correctness and they want to be unpc, I am going to mentally replace that with manners and rudeness. ” I don’t believe in political correctness ” becomes I don’t believe in good manners” and I am un-PC” becomes ” I am rude”. It doesn’t sound so good then does it, but that is what they mean!

Like this:

Oh, it has been a while. I have spent the last few months being quite distracted. I know I have posted during that time, but distracted none the less. And I have been looking for things to distract me from a reasonably unhappy state. And there have been many.

We played Pokemon Go

So many people at night in South Brisbane! And so many Pokemon (not pictured)

I drank decadent hot chocolate

Yum!

And we went to an exhibition of clothes from the Miss Fisher murder mysteries tv show. I like the books and the show. On the day we went they were having a garden party event as well

We walked along the river

We also went to the Ekka- the royal national exhibition, which is essentially the state fair.

For the first time they used the old Queensland museum, which was an original exhibition building

We also went to Greazefest and looked at old cars

We went to Melbourne to see a degas exhibition

We enjoyed coffee and cake, wine and o thee food

We made an epic mountain cake

We went to Comic Con- no pictures because it wasn’t great!

I went to a Cindy Sherman exhibition

We watched fireworks

This weekend I went to a craft show and volunteered at Fort Lytton for one day of Brisbane open house

Like this:

Not sure what happened, but I haven’t blogged for a while. I have been doing something with my time. If you follow me on Instagram (all 2 people who fit in that crossover) you may have noticed this.

At the beginning of September I started tracking my making of projects. Not anything huge, I just am making an effort to spend at least 10 minutes everyday making something, being creative. Mostly this has been a crochet blanket, but it has also meant the Black Forest trifle, a rag rug and an assortment of paper projects from a magazine. I have been taking pictures and tagging them as #10minutes of making. Which, strangely, was not already taken.

I seem to be building a good habit, except that I didn’t yesterday. But I thought that I probably wouldn’t- we went to dinner at a friend’s in the evening and in order to build up his strength G spent most of the day sleeping- he has been sick and is still lacking stamina.

It is very helpful to track this, and to try to create the ongoing habit.

Like this:

I made a Black Forest trifle for a 70s themed lunch. I decided on that after perusing various 70s recipes and realising that I don’t like a lot of food from that era, and don’t know how to make a lot of it. But a trifle based on a cake popular then- can do. There are a lot of recipes on the Internet, but not a lot of consistency.

So I made it up. I bought a lot of the elements pre made, because it was easier, but they could be made.

I started with a chocolate Swiss roll, from the supermarket. I think a chocolate sponge would also work, but there were no plain sponges at the supermarket. One recipe I saw suggested brownies. The cake was cur into slices, and covered with some cherry jam.

I then put some bottled morello cherries, some of the syrup from the cherries and some cherry liquor in a saucepan with a little bit of sugar and boiled it, to try and make a thicker cherry section. It didn’t thicken, but it boiled away a lot of the alcohol. Next time I might try kirsch (we used heering cherry liquor).

I then put the cherries on top of the cake

For the custard I wanted chocolate custard, but didn’t want to make it from scratch. So we bought ready made custard, the nice local farm brand! I put that on the stove on a low heat, and while it was heating I melted some dark chocolate (a large bar so probably 180-200 grams) and then whisked it into the custard. It was a little bitter, but the rest of the trifle was so sweet, it worked and by the next day didn’t taste as bitter.

I then chopped up some milk chocolate and scattered it on the custard with some more cherries. If you do this, warn people before they eat that there are chocolate chunks in there, otherwise they think it is a cherry stone.

I put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning I whipped some cream and covered it with grated milk chocolate.

It was delicious- this may be a go to Christmas dessert now. Very chocolatey.

Like this:

I was really sick last Thursday and Friday. My boss told me to go home on Thursday. I don’t get sick that often, so it was hard. I cancelled our Saturday activities, but then woke up feeling good on Saturday.

The fun run on Sunday? Was really good. The course was completely changed this year, and as a result was a lot more fun and easier for me to complete. So it was pretty good, despite the lack of preparation and the illness.

The cake did not get eaten. “Couldn’t be bothered”. So it went in the rubbish.

Work is going through some changes, the larger company needs to tighten its belt. While this is good in some ways, it is stressful, and some of the more entitled managers/areas are having issues.

I am going to try to make a Black Forest trifle for a thing on Saturday. So basically a trifle made with Black Forest cake components. Going to be interesting.

Parliament reconvenes tomorrow. This means that my work will get more interesting.